Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next.

Saturday, 21 March 2015

After 4 years of the Anglo-Zionist conspiracy on Syria, Ramzy Baroud, the “Son” of a Palestinian freedom fighter, refrains “from suggesting that IS is largely a creation of western intelligence”.

Ramzi ” justified the questions regarding:

“funds, armaments, black market oil trade, and the ease through which thousands of western and Arab fighters managed to reach Syria and Iraq in recent years.”

For him the so-called Arab fighters and ISIS is an outcome of the “War Crimes” Assad regime, his army and allies :

“The crimes carried out by the Assad regime, his army and allies [ Hezbollah and Iran] during the four-year long Syria civil war, and the unquenchable appetite to orchestrate a regime change in Damascus as a paramount priority for Western powers made nourishing the anti-Assad forces with wannabe “jihadists” justified, if not encouraged.“

For the Anglo-Zionist Empire the Crime of the Syrian Regime, army and allies is some thing else:

Syria is the cradle of Arab nationalism and Arab resistance.

Syria refusal to bow and her success in preventing the so-called peace with the “Israel”

Syrian support for the resistance movements in Palestine and Lebanon

In case Ramzy Baroud, the “Son” of a Palestinian freedom fighter, missed it:

In defending ISLAM Baroud referred to the so called “War on Islam”ignoring the fact:

The war Anglo-Zionist war is on Revolutionary Islam (Hezbollah, Hamas Islamic Jihad and Iran) not on Reactionary Islam (GCC – Wahabism the mother of Islamic Terrorism)

Syria and Iraq libya are not Islamic states. I wonder how Baroud would Justify the war on Venezuela and Russia?

Finally the so-called “rules of war in Islam”. I wonder if Baroud ever heard about Hawarij and its likes in Islamic History. Instead of saying the “rules of war in Islam” he should have said the “rules of war in Quran”

محمد شحرور – مفهوم الحرية واستعمال العنف

‘An Islamic View of the Christian World’ By Shaikh Imran Hosein

‘Islamic State’ as a Western Phenomenon

It is as if leaders of the so-called “Islamic State” (IS) are getting tips on demonising Muslims from world leading Islamophobes and as if they are trying to live up to the expectations of hate-mongering organisations like that of Pamela Geller’s American Freedom Defense Initiative, whose latest ads all over San Francisco compared Muslims to Nazis.

Yet, no matter how one attempts to wrangle with IS’s rise in Iraq and Syria, desperately seeking any political or other context that would validate the movement as an explainable historical development, things refuse to add up.

Western Connection

Not only is IS to a degree an alien movement in the larger body politic of the Middle East, it also seems to be a partly western phenomenon, a hideous offspring resulting from western neocolonial adventures in the region, coupled with alienation and demonisation of Muslim communities in western societies.

By “Western phenomenon,” I refrain from suggesting that IS is largely a creation of western intelligence as many conspiracy theories have persistently advocated. Of course, one is justified in raising questions regarding funds, armaments, black market oil trade, and the ease through which thousands of western and Arab fighters managed to reach Syria and Iraq in recent years. The crimes carried out by the Assad regime, his army and allies during the four-year long Syria civil war, and the unquenchable appetite to orchestrate a regime change in Damascus as a paramount priority for Western powers made nourishing the anti-Assad forces with wannabe “jihadists” justified, if not encouraged.

The latest announcement by Turkey’s foreign minister Meylut Cavusoglu of the arrest of a spy “working for the intelligence service of a country participating in the coalition against ISIS” – presumably Canada – allegedly for helping three young British girls join IS, was revealing. The accusation feeds into a growing discourse that locates IS within a western, not Middle Eastern discourse.

Still, it is not the conspiracy per se that I find intriguing, if not puzzling, but the ongoing, albeit indirect conversation between IS and the West, involving French, British and Australian so-called “Jihadists”, their sympathisers and supporters on one hand, and various western governments, intelligence services, right-wing media pundits, etc on the other.

Much of the discourse – once upon a time located within a narrative consumed by the “Arab Spring”, sectarian divisions and counter revolutions – has now been transferred into another sphere that seems of little relevance to the Middle East. Regardless of where one stands on how Mohammad Emwazi morphed into a “Jihadi John”, the conversation is oddly largely removed from its geopolitical context. In this instance, it is an essentially British issue concerning alienation, racism, economic and cultural marginalization, perhaps as much as the issue of the “born, raised and radicalised” attackers of Charlie Hebdo is principally a French question, pertaining to the same socioeconomic fault lines.

The Other ‘Roots of IS’

The conventional analysis on the rise of IS no longer suffices. Tracing the movement to Oct 2006 when the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) – uniting various groups including al-Qaeda – was established, simply suggests a starting point to the discussion, whose roots go back to the dismantling of the Iraqi state and army by the US military occupation authority. Just the idea that the Arab republic of Iraq was led from 11 May 2003 until 28 June 2004 by a Lewis Paul Bremer III, is enough to delineate the unredeemable rupture in the country’s identity. Bremer and US military chiefs’ manipulation of Iraq’s sectarian vulnerabilities, in addition to the massive security vacuum created by sending an entire army home, ushered in the rise of numerous groups, some homegrown resistance movements, and other alien bodies who sought in Iraq a refugee, or a rallying cry.

Also conveniently missing in the rise of “jihadism” context is the staggering brutality of Shia-dominated governments in Baghdad and militias throughout Iraq, with full backing by the US and Iran. If the US war (1990-1), blockade (1991-2003), invasion (2003) and subsequent occupation of Iraq were not enough to radicalise a whole generation, then brutality, marginalisation and constant targeting of Iraqi Sunnis in post-invasion Iraq have certainly done the job.

The conventional media narrative on IS focuses mostly on the politicking, division and unity that happened between various groups, but ignores the reasons behind the existence of these groups in the first place.

The Syria Expansion

The Syria civil war was another opportunity at expansion sought successfully by ISI, whose capital until then was Baquba, Iraq. ISI was headed by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a key player in the establishment of Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Nusra Front). The highly cited breakup between al-Baghdadi and al-Nusra leader Mohammed al-Golani is referenced as the final stage of IS’s brutal rise to power and ISI becoming ISIL or ISIS, before settling finally at the current designation of simply “Islamic State”, or IS.

Following the division, “some estimates suggest that about 65 percent of Jabhat al-Nusra elements quickly declared their allegiance to ISIS. Most of those were non-Syrian jihadists,” reported Lebanon’s al-Safir.

Militants’ politicking aside, such massively destructive and highly organised occurrences are not born in a vacuum and don’t operate independently from many existing platforms that help spawn, arm, fund and sustain them. For example, IS’s access to oil refineries says nothing about its access to wealth. To obtain funds from existing economic modes, IS needed to tap into a complex economic apparatus that would involve other countries, regional and international markets. In other words, IS exists because there are those who are invested in their existence, and the highly touted anti-IS coalition has evidently done little to confront this reality.

Intellectual Arrogance and Western Muslim Debate

Particularly interesting is the rapidly changing focal point of the debate, from that pertaining to Syria and Iraq, to a western-centric discussion about western-styled jihadists that seem removed from the Middle East region and its political conflicts and priorities.

In a letter signed by over a hundred Muslim scholars that was published last September, the theologians and clergymen from around the Muslim word rightly disowned IS and its bloodthirsty ambitions as un-Islamic. Indeed, IS’s war tactics are the reverse of the rules of war in Islam, and have been a godsend to those who made successful careers by simply bashing Islam, and advocating foreign policies that are predicated on an irrational fear of Muslims. But particularly interesting was the Arabic version of the letter’s emphasis on IS’s lack of command over the Arabic language, efficiency in which is a requirement for making legal Islamic rulings and fatwas.

“Who gave you authority over the ummah [Muslim people]?” asked the letter. “A group of no more than several thousand has appointed itself the ruler of over a billion-and-a-half Muslims. This attitude is based upon a corrupt circular logic that says: ‘Only we are Muslims, and we decide who the caliph is, we have chosen one and so whoever does not accept our caliph is not a Muslim.’”

The letter confronts the intellectual arrogance of IS, which is based mostly on a misguided knowledge of Islam that is rarely spawned in the region itself. But that intellectual arrogance that has led to the murders of many innocent people, and other hideous crimes such as the legalisation of slavery – again, to the satisfaction of the numerous Islamophobes dotting western intellectual landscapes – is largely situated in a different cultural and political context outside of the Middle East.

In post-11 September attacks, a debate concerning Islam has been raging, partly because the attacks were blamed on Muslims, thus allowing politicians to create distractions, and reduce the discussion into one concerning religion and a purported “clash of civilizations”. Despite various assurances by Western leaders that the US-led wars in Muslim countries is not a war on Islam, Islam remains the crux of the intellectual discourse that has adjoined the military “crusade” declared by George W Bush, starting with the first bomb dropped on Afghanistan in 2001.

That discourse is too involved for a transitory mention, for it is an essential one to the IS story. It is one that has involved various schools of thought, including a breed of Muslim “liberals”, used conveniently to juxtapose them with an “extremist” bunch. Yet between the apologists and the so-called jihadists, a genuine, Muslim-led discussion about Islam by non-coopted Muslim scholars remains missing.

The intellectual vacuum is more dangerous than it may seem. There is no question that while the battle is raging on in the Middle East region, the discourse itself is increasingly being manipulated and is becoming a Western one. This is why IS is speaking English, for its language complete with authentic western accents, methods, messages and even the orange hostage jumpsuits, is centred in some other sociopolitical and cultural context.

It is strange, but telling, how a discussion that began with uprisings for freedom and equality in Arab countries has been reduced to those concerning Islamic revival – liberal western Muslims vs extremists, Jihadi Johns, and western “spies” recruiting western Muslim youth, escaping marginalisation in their own communities. Yet, instead of serving as a wake-up call and urgent need for introspection by the West, there is a stubborn insistence on using IS as a springboard for more interventionism in the Middle East, thus feeding the cycle of violence, without confronting its roots.

Ramzy Baroud – www.ramzybaroud.net – is an internationally-syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author of several books and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. He is currently completing his PhD studies at the University of Exeter. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story (Pluto Press, London).

It happens so often you wonder whether it is due to total ineptness or a deliberate policy to undermine our efforts overseas. It’s most likely a result of corruption and unintended consequences, combined with a foreign policy that makes it impossible to determine who are our friends are and who are our enemies. One would think that so many failures in arming others to do our bidding in our effort to control an empire would awaken our leaders and the American people and prompt policy changes.

The report was about $500 million worth of military equipment that is unaccounted for in Yemen. Just as in so many other places, our policy of provoking civil strife in Yemen has been a complete failure. At one time it was announced that there was a great victory in a war being won with drones assisting groups that claimed to be on our side in the Yemen Civil War. As usual, we could have expected that these weapons would end up in the hands of the militants not on the side of United States and would never be accounted for.

There are numerous examples of how our foreign intervention backfires and actually helps the enemy. Just recently a headline announced: “CIA cash sometimes refills al-Qaeda coffers.” This was a story of our government helping pay ransom to al-Qaeda for the release an Afghan diplomat. However this was a measly $5 million so it was not considered a big deal. Another headline just recently announced that, “Iraqi army downs two UK planes carrying weapons for ISIL.”

The Iraqi army is supposed to be on our side, and many people believe the UK is also on our side as well. One thing for sure the American taxpayer pays for all this nonsense.

Building weapons and seeing them end up in the hands of the enemy is almost a routine event and one should expect it to continue to happen under the circumstances of the chaos in the Middle East. This represents a cost to the American taxpayer and is obviously a major contributing factor in what will be the ultimate failure of our plan to remake the Middle East. This is bad enough, and the only people who seem to benefit from it are those who are earning profits in the military-industrial complex. But there is something every bit as bad as our weapons ending up in the hands of the jihadists and being used against us. That is, the fact that our presence there, our weapons, and our bombs, are the best recruiting tool for getting individuals to join the fight against America’s presence in so many conflicts around the world.

If our leaders cannot understand the arguments against our current policies based on the Constitutional and moral principles, they ought to at least be willing to pay attention to the impracticality of a policy that almost always seems to backfire, is always very expensive, and is always detrimental to our national defense.

Someday out of necessity we will be forced to consider a policy that the Founders advocated. Friendship with all nations, peace, commerce, and avoidance of all entangling alliances while staying out of the internal affairs of other nations. Unless something miraculous happens, I fear that this will not be accomplished until we are forced to come to our knees in the midst of a colossal bankruptcy.

I came along and excellent article about Syria, which exposes the role of the mass media and western policymakers by shedding light on truths that were suppressed during the early stage of the Syrian conflict:

They claimed that the protests were entirely peaceful for a very long time. Some went so far to say that in the entire first year or at least in the first 6 months of the “revolution” the “opposition” stuck to peaceful means.

Only after suffering continuously indiscriminate and disproportionate violence at the hands of the security forces, the allegedly secular/liberal/moderate opposition turned to violence as a means of self defense.

The myth of the peaceful unarmed opposition does not withstand if scrutinized without bias. “When mass protests began in Syria they included violent attacks and murders of police from the beginning“:

“…up to 60 Syrian security forces were killed that day in a massacre that has been hidden by both the Syrian government and residents of Daraa.

One Daraa native explains: “At that time, the government did not want to show they are weak and the opposition did not want to show they are armed.”
Beyond that, the details are sketchy. Nizar Nayouf, a longtime Syria dissident and blogger who wrote about the killings, says the massacre took place in the final week of March 2011.”…“on April 25, 2011, nineteen Syrian soldiers were gunned down in Daraa by unknown assailants. “…“April 10 was also the day when we learned of the first massacre of Syrian soldiers – in Banyas, Tartous – when nine troops were ambushed and gunned down on a passing bus. The BBC, Al Jazeera and the Guardian all initially quoted witnesses claiming the dead soldiers were “defectors” shot by the Syrian army for refusing to fire on civilians.
That narrative was debunked later, but the story that soldiers were being killed by their own commanders stuck hard throughout 2011 – and gave the media an excuse to ignore stories that security forces were being targeted by armed groups.

The SOHR’s Rami Abdul Rahman says of the “defector” storyline: “This game of saying the army is killing defectors for leaving – I never accepted this because it is propaganda.”“…“on April 23, seven soldiers were slaughtered in Nawa, a town near Daraa. Those killings did not make the headlines like the one in Banyas. Notably, the incident took place right after the Syrian government tried to defuse tensions by abolishing the state security courts, lifting the state of emergency, granting general amnesties and recognizing the right to peaceful protest. “…“Instead, all we ever heard was about the mass killing of civilians by security forces:“The dictator slaughtering his own people.” But three years into the Syrian crisis, can we say that things may have taken a different turn if we had access to more information? Or if media had simply provided equal air-time to the different, contesting testimonies that were available to us? “…“Syrian-based Father Frans van der Lugt was the Dutch priest murdered by a gunman in Homs just a few weeks ago. His involvement in reconciliation and peace activities never stopped him from lobbing criticisms at both sides in this conflict. But in the first year of the crisis, he penned some remarkable observations about the violence – this one in January 2012:

“From the start the protest movements were not purely peaceful. From the start I saw armed demonstrators marching along in the protests, who began to shoot at the police first. Very often the violence of the security forces has been a reaction to the brutal violence of the armed rebels.”
In September 2011 he wrote: “From the start there has been the problem of the armed groups, which are also part of the opposition…The opposition of the street is much stronger than any other opposition. And this opposition is armed and frequently employs brutality and violence, only in order then to blame the government.”“

Then there is the myth of the “moderate opposition”. To this date major parts of euro-american mass media continue to uphold the bizarr claim that the armed Syrian opposition or at least the major bulk of the fighters, the so called “Free Syrian Army” are moderates.
“It is often suggested the “moderate opposition” is popular, democratic and secular.
President Obama has recently proposed giving $500 million to the “moderate opposition”.Patrick Cockburn sums up the reality in the newly released book “The Jihadis Return: ISIS and the New Sunni Uprising”:

“It is here that self-deception reigns, because the Syrian military opposition is dominated by ISIS and by Jabhat Al Nusra, the official Al Qaeda representative, in addition to other extreme jihadi groups. In reality there is no dividing wall between them and America’s supposedly moderate opposition allies.”

This situation is not new. A NY Times article in summer 2012 discussed the hidden presence of Al Qaeda within the “Free Syrian Army” “

In another article Patrick Cockburn writes: “Jihadi groups ideologically close to al-Qa‘ida have been relabeled as moderate if their actions are deemed supportive of U.S. policy aims. In Syria, the Americans backed a plan by Saudi Arabia to build up a “Southern Front” based in Jordan that would be hostile to the Assad government in Damascus, and simultaneously hostile to al-Qa‘ida-type rebels in the north and east. The powerful but supposedly moderate Yarmouk Brigade, reportedly the planned recipient of anti-aircraft missiles from Saudi Arabia, was intended to be the leading element in this new formation. But numerous videos show that the Yarmouk Brigade has frequently fought in collaboration with JAN, the official al-Qa‘ida affiliate. Since it was likely that, in the midst of battle, these two groups would share their munitions, Washington was effectively allowing advanced weaponry to be handed over to its deadliest enemy. Iraqi officials confirm that they have captured sophisticated arms from ISIS fighters in Iraq that were originally supplied by outside powers to forces considered to be anti-al-Qa‘ida in Syria.”

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/08/21/why-washingtons-war-on-terror-failed/
“In the East of Syria, there is no Free Syrian Army any longer. All Free Syrian Army people [there] have joined the Islamic State,” says Abu Yusaf, a high-level security commander of the Islamic State, whom The Washington Post’s Anthony Faiola wrote about last week…”
“some of the people the U.S. and their allies had trained to fight for ‘democracy’ in Libya and Syria had a jihadist agenda — already or later, [when they] joined al Nusra or the Islamic State,” a senior Arab intelligence official said in a recent interview…”

“For a long time, Western and Arab states supported the Free Syrian Army not only with training but also with weapons and other materiel. The Islamic State commander, Abu Yusaf, added that members of the Free Syrian Army who had received training — from the United States, Turkey and Arab military officers at an American base in Southern Turkey — have now joined the Islamic State. “Now many of the FSA people who the West has trained are actually joining us,” he said, smiling.”

To this day many western mainstream media still stick to two fairy tales:

a) That there is a single entity called “Free Syrian Army” and that it is the biggest rebel faction

b) That the FSA, unlike ISIS or Jabhat al Nusra (JAN) is “moderate”

Just a single example that clearly demonstrates how moderate and respectable the FSA is (IRONY):

“Contacted by telephone, Adnan al-Assadi, Iraq’s deputy interior minister, said Iraqi border guards had witnessed the Free Syrian Army take control of a border outpost, detain a Syrian army lieutenant colonel, and then cut off his arms and legs.

A couple of weeks ago, Secretary of State John Kerry reiterated that it might be necessary to invade Syria after all, and not only to rid the world of Twitter-savvy, Nutella-loving murderous terrorists, but also to effect a necessary regime change. Here’s what he said:

“Military pressure may be needed to oust Syria's President Bashar al-Assad."

Now, two days after reports surfaced that the Assad government had once again decided to gas women and children and one day after the Syrian military said it did no such thing because it “doesn’t need to,”John Kerry wants you to know that the US will take whatever measures are necessary to hold Assad accountable for what other people say he might have done. Here’s more, from the Secretary of State:

The United States is deeply disturbed by reports that the Assad regime used chlorine as a weapon again, this time on March 16 in an attack on the town of Sarmin. We are looking very closely into this matter and considering next steps. While we cannot yet confirm details, if true, this would be only the latest tragic example of the Assad regime's atrocities against the Syrian people, which the entire international community must condemn.

What is clear is that the Assad regime continues to flout international standards and norms, including, if these latest allegations are verified, the Chemical Weapons Convention. The international community cannot turn a blind eye to such barbarism. As has been well documented, the Assad regime continues to terrorize the people of Syria through indiscriminate airstrikes, barrel bombings, arbitrary detention, torture, sexual violence, murder, and starvation. The Assad regime must be held accountable for such atrocious behavior.

A chemical weapons attack through the use of chlorine would not only be the latest example of the regime’s brutality towards the Syrian people, but also a direct violation of UN Security Council Resolution 2209, which specifically condemned the use of chlorine as a chemical weapon in Syria and made clear such a violation would have consequences. Any and all credible allegations of chemical weapons use, including the use of toxic industrial chemicals, must be investigated, and we continue to support the OPCW Fact Finding Mission in its continuing critical mission.

The Assad regime’s horrifying pattern of using chlorine as a chemical weapon against the Syrian people underscores the importance of investigating this allegation as quickly as possible, holding those who perpetrated such abhorrent acts in violation of international law accountable, and continuing to support the complete elimination chemical weapons in this volatile region.

While there’s no doubt that the use of chemical weapons is horrific, we would once again note that at the end of the day, this may well be about something different:

Actually, the highest priority is not "Daesh" which is a populist distraction aided by some truly Hollywood-grade video editing and YouTube clips, but who controls the ground under Assad's feet: that all important gateway from the middle east into Turkey, and then, Europe. A gateway that is critical to the one nation that has all the natural gas in the world, and no end market to sell it to: Qatar.

Of course, Assad knows all of this: late last year, Assad told French reporters, “let’s be honest: Had Qatar not paid money to those terrorists at that time, and had Turkey not supported them logistically, and had not the West supported them politically, things would have been different. If we in Syria had problems and mistakes before the crisis, which is normal, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the events had internal causes”.

Assad continued, daring to call the staged US spade precisely what it was: he called its air strikes "merely cosmetic" and said that “terrorism cannot be destroyed from the air.” Assad added that “saying that the alliance’s airstrikes are helping us is not true." Which is why Time had to spin an unsourced article to "prove" that there was in fact a connection between the two.

1. Ensure that you are the leader of the Likud party that originated as a terrorist organisation but convince the United States, your primary funder, and also the United Nations, that your negotiations over the past five years for a peaceful settlement with a 2-state solution, have been absolutely genuine.

2. During the election for a new Knesset, you suddenly proclaim that all your so-called negotiations have, in fact, been false and deceitful and that you will never, ever, allow a Palestinian State whilst you are in charge.

3. When you perceive that the vote may be going against you, you post an urgent message on social media that the Israeli Arabs are coming to vote in great numbers and must be stopped at any cost and that, furthermore, there is a global conspiracy to ensure your defeat.

4. In the event, when the votes are counted, and thanks presumably to your racial scaremongering, you have actually gained 30 seats out of 120, enabling you to proclaim a great victory!

5. 24 hours later, after re-considering your conduct, you are forced to remember that it is the United States that enables your country to survive – so you then insist that you were not really serious about rejecting a state for the 5.8 million indigenous Arab population of former Palestine – you were only joking and please could you still have the money and the guns and the F16s and the cluster bombs so as to allow you to carry on talking for another 20 years whilst contemporaneously extending the illegal settlements to cover the entire West Bank and ethnic-cleansing the whole of Arab East Jerusalem?

It has been already 6 years since I interviewed Gilad for the first time and when a friend recently suggested that it was time for a new conversation, I immediately agreed, as did Gilad who, in spite of his over-booked and hectic lifestyle took the time to reply to my questions. Gilad is, in my opinion, not only the most original and talented jazz musician currently composing and playing (make sure to get his latest CD “The Whistle Blower“), he is also an extremely profound philosopher who has the amazing courage not only to ask the key questions, but to also answer them. His book “The Wandering Who” is, I strongly believe, a must read for anybody wanting to see through the “fog” of modern “Jewish anti-Zionism”. As somebody who has gotten his share of hate mail, I can only begin to imagine the kind of hate-filled poison which Gilad has had to put up with for his courage and even though he will not speak about it, I will say that it takes exceptional courage and moral strength to do what Gilad did and is still doing. So, with no hyperbole at all, but quite literally, I will say that Gilad Atzmon is a modern hero whose courage and phenomenal intellect will, I am sure, eventually be recognized as one of the most brilliant ones of our time. I am deeply honored that he considers me to be a friend.

The Saker

Q&A with Gilad Atzmon

The Saker: Since our last interview in 2009 the world has changed a lot and in many ways. In your opinion, has the global resistance to the Empire grown stronger or weaker over these years and why? What about the current regime in Israel, do you see it weakening or not?

Gilad Atzmon: It all depends on how you define the ‘Empire.’ Is the empire the market forces that drive global capitalism? Is it the Neocons who push us into Zionist wars, one after the other? Or maybe it is the tyranny of correctness that suppresses our ability to think authentically? Is it possible that these three are mere symptoms of an obscure impetus we are yet to be able to define or even grasp?

In my recent writing I argue that Jewish power is the ability to silence criticism of Jewish power. This observation helps us to adopt a transcendental take on issues of the ‘empire’ and the negative powers that dominate our lives. Instead of talking about the empire, we must first identify the forces that prevent us from talking about the empire. We are getting very close to that bone now.

A growing number of commentators are now willing openly to challenge Jewish power. I assume that the rapidly growing Jewish fear of ‘anti Semitism’ relates to the fact that many Jews are also fearful of the extent of the power that is held by other Jews and is closely related to the ‘empire’.

This leads us to Israel and its Jewish Lobby. I think that in the last two years we have witnessed a clear transformation. Western leadership says no to Zionist warmongering. I guess they have had enough of these disastrous futile wars.

The Saker: You have recently written an amazing book entitled “The Wondering Who” in which you made a seminal analysis of Jewish identity politics. You clearly explained that you differentiated between Jews (the people), Judaism (the religion) and Jewish-ness (the ideology) and that you were only interested in the latter, in Jewish identity politics. I can understand why you would not want to deal with Jews as a people, especially since you say that they do not form “any kind of racial continuum”, but your setting aside Judaism is more problematic for me. Yes, Neturei Karta is anti-Zionist, but even they are still part of a religious movement we could refer to as “rabbinical Judaism” or “Talmudic Judaism” and, as you well know, Jewish racism has its roots directly in the rabbinical/talmudic interpretation of the Tanakh (The Masoretic version of the Old Testament). Have such famous Judaics as Maimonides,Karo, Luria not greatly contributed to the development of Jewish exceptionalism and racism? Do today’s rabbis in Israel not justify the mass murder of Palestinians precisely by appealing to the numerous and well-known examples of goy-hatred in the Talmud? Finally, since religion is a choice, not a condition, is it not a legitimate target of scrutiny and criticism? Then why have you made the choice not to look into the Judaic roots of modern Jewish-ness and ideology?

Gilad Atzmon: I have come across this question many times and I understand the point made in your question. There is no doubt that Judaism, the Talmud and the Torah contain some devastatingly crude and even inhumane verses and teachings. And yet, traditionally Rabbinical Judaism was very effective in suppressing any manifestation of Jewish collective goy hatred. If Rabbinical Jews were supremacist, as some may forcefully argue, they were also timid. They segregated themselves and, largely kept their anti Goy attitude to themselves.

This changed radically with Jewish secularization. The Godless Jew transformed choseness into a form of a racially driven, tribal privilege. Yuri Slezkine in his invaluable book, ‘The Jewish Century,’ confirms that Jews were ‘Stalin’s willing executioners,’ in the Holodomor, the systematic deadly starvation of millions of Ukrainians in the early 1930s. The demography of the Spanish International Brigade is also revealing. 25% of the Brigade’s combatants were Jewish. Yiddish was the Brigade’s Lingua Franca. We have to ask what is it that motivated these young revolutionaries to fight Catholic Spain? Was it really a battle against Fascism, was Franco a Fascist? Why did they burn so many churches, after all, one would expect these Jewish revolutionaries to first combat rabbinical tyranny and the synagogues. Just a few years later, in 1948, the Nakba – once again, a collective of secular socialist Zionist Jews engaged in a systematic racially motivated ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

The Jews who perpetrated these colossal crimes against humanity were not rabbinical or religious; they were Godless and succumbed to left ideology.

The Saker: You have recently traveled to France and participated in several events with Alain Soral (see here and here). This was not your first trip to France as you had also been there in 2013 were you met Jacob Cohen and had a very interesting discussion with him (see here). I have always felt that the power of the CRIF and UEJF in France was even bigger than the one of AIPAC and ADL in the USA. Would you agree with this?

Gilad Atzmon: Totally. For some time, France has been dominated by a forceful Jewish lobby (CRIF) that has been able to determine the boundaries of discussion as well as freedom in general. It is interesting to examine the treacherous role of the current socialist government in that respect. In some of my recent writing I argue that both Jewish and Left politics contain an element of animosity towards working class people. Jews are generally fearful of the Working Class because it is always that class that turns against them. The Left is also dotted with antagonism towards working people (those who are now reduced into a Workless Class), because of the embarrassing fact that the working people have never joined the promised revolution. In France we see a strong bond between the uniquely unpopular socialist government and a tribal lobby group that is concerned solely with Jewish interests. How embarrassing.

The Saker: Jacob Cohen says that in his opinion the most powerful Zionist organization on the planet is the B’nai B’rith that, in his opinion, is the primary recruiting pool for the Mossad’ssayanim. Do you agree with that? Which organizations, in your opinion, occupy the top positions in the Zionist totem pole?

Gilad Atzmon: Unlike Jacob Cohen I have never been part of the Jewish community and do not necessarily understand the mechanics involved in recruiting Israeli agents and sayanim. I analyze the Jewish tribal operation from philosophical and psychoanalytical perspectives. For instance, I delve into the notion of Jewish fear. I examine how it is fueled by Jewish ID politics (both Zionist and ‘anti’) and how it evolves into action – Aliya, war mongering and so on.

I contend that, to a certain extent, every person who operates within a Jews only political movement, whether it is Max Blumenthal, Philip Weiss, Paul Jay or Abe Foxman is a Sayan. I will elaborate. To operate politically ‘as a Jew’ is to be primarily concerned with Jewish interests rather than universal humanist objectives. Foxman and Blumenthal each advocate what he believes to be ‘good for the Jews.’ However, they clearly do not agree between themselves what is good for the Jews.

The consequence and the deeper meaning of what I say above is that there is no Jewish (collective) answer to the Jewish question.

The Saker: Coming back to the events in France, what is your assessment of the struggle taking place between, on one hand, Alain Soral, Dieudonne and the movement Égalité et Réconciliation and, on the other hand, the French Zionist organizations and the French state? Would you say that the Zionist control over France is weakening or getting stronger?

Gilad Atzmon: It is a crucial question. Many French Jews apparently do not feel safe in France anymore and many have moved to Israel. Is this because they realize that CRIF will eventually cause a disaster for the Jews? Probably.

The Saker: My next question is about words and definitions. For many years already, I have been using the word “Anglo-Zionist Empire” on my blog because I believe that the power structure we are currently dealing with is the successor to the British Empire (the modern “Anglosphere”, the ECHELONcountries basically) which has now been ‘injected’ with a Zionist ideology both by Jews and by Zionist Christians, as shown by the power of the Neocons in the USA (for a full explanation see here) The strange thing is that even though the category “Anglo” is an ethnic one and “Zionist” is not (it is an ideological one), I got submerged by hate mail and criticisms for the latter, and only 2 emails objecting to the former. I therefore emailed a few well-known personalities such as Michael Neumann, Shlomo Sand, Norman Finkelstein and you. Neuman and Sand never replied, and here are the relevant parts of my exchange with Norman Finkelstein:

The Saker: For many years I have been using the term “AngloZionist Empire” and this term has frequently been condemned by other bloggers and readers. I have therefore written up a short explanation for my use of that term (see attached document). Could I please ask you to take the time to read through this short text and share with me your reaction. Do you find my usage of this term appropriate or not and, in the latter case, how would you suggest that I describe the “Empire”?

Norman Finkelstein: Israel is a country of 7.5 million people. For such a small country it commits a lot of evil. But it hardly constitutes an empire or one half of an empire. At most it is a junior partner of the US.

The Saker: I never spoke of an AngloIsraeli or a US-Israeli Empire, I spoke of an AngloZionist empire which, for example, includes the millions of Evangelical non-Jewish Zionists in the USA. Do you believe that Zionism is a core component of the US Empire or is that a mistaken notion?

Norman Finkelstein: I haven’t a clue what you mean when you say that “Zionism” is a core component of the US Empire? Professor Chomsky calls himself a Zionist. Is he a core component of the US Empire?

The Saker: as a professor of philosophy you are surely able to see for yourself the logical fallacies in your question; besides that, the first time you conflated Zionism and Israel, the second time you conflated Zionism with Chomsky. If you refuse to answer my question substantively, I would prefer if you said so.

He never replied. So what is going on here? What is your take on my use of the expression “Anglo-Zionist Empire” and why are, in your opinion, Neumann, Sand and Finkelstein so unwilling to engage on this topic?

Gilad Atzmon: As I said earlier on, Jewish power is the ability to restrict or silence criticism of Jewish power. Your dialogue with Finkelstein is an exemplary case of such an operation.

Jewish power is not a Zionist phenomenon. In fact, it is mostly sustained by the Left, by Chomsky type activists, Democracy Now and to a far lesser extent Norman Finkelstein whom I appreciate as an intellectual (though I hardly agree with him on anything). The tactic is obvious. We are pushed to operate within a given discourse that contains some clear boundaries. We are restricted by terminology that is designed to block real scrutiny of the most troubling issues and conceal the truth. And what is this truth? A list of questions to do with Jewishness: the Jewishness of the Jewish State, the extent of the power of the Jewish lobby in the west, the ideological continuum between the Zionist and the ‘anti’ and so on.

The Saker: In our first interview you said that “ethics and morality are far more crucial than some UN decisions” and I also remember you writing elsewhere that future politics will have to be centered on ethics and values rather than on ideology. Could you please elaborate on what you mean exactly and whether you see our world getting closer to that goal or not?

Gilad Atzmon: I believe that it has become much easier to grasp the meaning of my past observation. As time goes by, we are becoming more and more cynical about the dark forces that run our universe. We understand that, rather than being free beings, we have been reduced into mere consumers. While in the past a politician claimed his commitment to the provision of health, education and production, the role of the contemporary politician is to facilitate consumption on behalf of the conglomerates. And yet it is our authentic ethical and empathic awareness that are at the core of our humanist indignation. It is our own ethical judgments that provide us with a compass and leads us toward truth. As the situation seems to be worsening, the more we have to trust our personal ethics that are also universally shared.

The Saker: I have personally come to the conclusion that both racism and nationalism are primarily the ugly offshoots of the 19th century nationalism which itself substituted the traditional religious worship of a God by a secular religion of self-worship which expressed itself in all the subsequent 20th century forms of racism and nationalism. Would you agree with that, or do you think that racism and nationalism are inherent to our (fallen) human nature?

Gilad Atzmon: I think that belonging is inherent to human nature and it takes different shapes at different times. I believe that racism and nationalism have been replaced by ID politics. We are trained to talk ‘as a’- as a Jew, as a black, as a gay, as a disabled person, and the forms of these sectarian political structures are very interesting.

We always have to ask ourselves, who benefits? Don’t we want to be Americans or French again? Or do we prefer to operate within marginal sectarian cosmopolitan ID settings? I am not sure. Again, if health, education and labour are at the core of a healthy society, ID politics operates as a clear obstacle. It prevents us from dealing with ‘real issues.’ We discuss gay marriage and anti-Semitism instead of building factories, hospitals and schools.

The Saker: What is your view of religion in the modern world? Do you agree with the quote attributed to Dostoevsky that “if there is no God, everything is permitted” or do you believe that a non-religious value system is possible? Can we objectively define that this or that is “good” or “bad” without appealing to a religious revelation? Can you imagine a secular system of ethnics?

Gilad Atzmon: I would love to believe that universal ethics is a valid concept and independent of any religious thought. But the evidence of secular genocides around us is unfortunately compelling. I guess that if people are set to kill each other, all they need is an excuse.

The Saker: Lastly, what are your hopes for the future? Do you think that Russia, China and the BRICS will be able to bring down the AngloZionst Empire and that a multi-polar world order based on international law and respect for people’s and nation’s rights is possible, or are you pessimistic about our future?

Gilad Atzmon: I am always optimistic but this doesn’t necessarily mean that things are getting better. It may be possible that Jewish power will be restricted in the near future. It may even be possible that some future Jewish suffering is inevitable and this is, of course, unfortunate. I am confident that the Jewish elite is not going to be affected by such circumstances. If anything, they will be the first to benefit from any such a development. Ask yourself how many Rothschild died in the holocaust? Would Israel have been established without the Shoah? Would the Jews be as powerful without the Holocaust? These are open questions and in order to understand Jewish power we must engage in these topics and grasp once and for all the sophistication of the Jewish tribal matrix, the way in which it evolves and so on…